“They cut the umbilical cord, give you a slap on the ass, and presto! you're out in the world, adrift, a ship without a rudder.”

“Deep in the blood the pull of paradise. The beyond. It must have all started with the navel. They cut the umbilical cord, give you a slap in the ass, and presto! you're out in the world, adrift. You look at the stars and then you look at your navel. You grow eyes everywhere -in the armpits, between the lips, in the roots of your hair, on the soles of your feet. What is distant becomes near, what is near becomes distant. Inner-outer, a constant flux, a shedding of skins, a turning inside out.”

“Without anxiety and illness I should have been like a ship without a rudder.”

“Why do I always feel like you're trying to staple my umbilical cord to the corner of your desk?”

“Well, people got attatched. Once you cut the umbilical cord they attatched to the other things. Sight, sound, sex, money, mirages, mothers, masturbation, murder, and Monday morning hangovers.”

“He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder and compass and never knows where he may cast.”